Doing the right thing in Liberia may not
be the right thing to do

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
Liberia. It's all about the oil, isn't it. Wait a minute -- no oil.

OK, then it's a scheme to give fat contracts to Halliburton to rebuild
the infrastructure. Wait a minunte -- no infrastructure. So what
deep devious reason does President Bush have? Rubber! Of course!
No blood for Rubber!

No war to enrich Bush's rubber cronies! Down with big rubber!

Or perhaps there's something else at work. Prior to his swing through
Africa, President Bush made the case for beneficent unilateralism.
"It's in our national interest that Africa become a prosperous
place," he said. "It's in our interest that people will
continue to fight terror together; it's in our interest that when
we find suffering, we deal with it."

Three points, three very different reasons. The first confirms the
fears of those who believe the administration wants to plant the
flag of corporate globalism in the mother continent. Sure, they
want a prosperous Africa, but only if that means 7-11s and McDonald's
every six miles, shoving Winstons and Big Macs in the mouths of
a helpless population. They want a prosperous Africa that will make
shoes, spin cotton and cheaply clothe the millions John Ashcroft
wants to imprison at Guantanamo.

Right. Fine. Does that tinfoil beanie get uncomfortably hot in the
summertime? Just asking.

Point two: "It's in our interest to fight terror together."
True enough, but the continent does not exactly boil with Islamic
fury.

You have lawless Somalia on the Horn of Africa, where al-Qaida et
al can operate as they please. You have Nigeria, which ought to
be renamed "Oil-Rich Nigeria," since that's the usual
description. Oil-Rich Nigeria has a heapin' helpin' of home-grown
Islamists in the north, and it would not be a good thing if they
took control of the oil fields in the mostly Christian south. But
this isn't the first front in the war on terror, or even the second.
The Saudis fund more in a day than Africa can do in a year.

Point three: "It's in our interest that when we find suffering,
we deal with it." In the practical sense, this simply isn't
true.

Starvation, tribal war, AIDS, flatlined economies -- they have a
negligible impact on American interests. Rwanda will not nuke Des
Moines for food and fresh water. The Congo will not sail ships up
the Potomac and loot D.C. Africa could disappear tomorrow and the
net impact on the world's economy would be slight. Write off some
loans; buy some new maps; move along.

But that is not a humane opinion. It is not, to risk using a dangerous
word in modern politics, very Christian. And the president is a
very Christian man. One senses that he regards national self-interest
here not just as a projection of military power for specific objectives,
but the use of American largesse to help others in need. In his
view, it is in America's interest to be decent. It's in our interest
to be good.

No, we can't solve everything, but that's no argument for solving
nothing.

Liberia, however, is not Iraq. Which side do we want to win? The
Liberian People's Front, the People's Liberia Front, the Army for
Liberian People? This isn't like a squabble between Elks and Kiwanis
over who gets the Holiday Inn meeting room on Wednesday morning.
This is ethnic chaos in its most distilled and potent form, strife
unmoored from ideology, seeking only to be standing on top when
it all ends.

The United States may go to Liberia, but one day it'll leave. The
day the last cargo plane rumbles off is the day someone will pass
out the rifles again and make a bid for power.

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